Any trout angler will tell you the most lucrative fishing spot is one you have all to yourself. The popularity of fishing and the parameters of the DNR’s trout stocking program make that a challenge to find, but in West Virginia those willing to wear a little rubber off the soles of their waders can certainly escape the crowded banks of the state’s lowland fisheries.
DNR Biologist Kevin Yokum and I travelled in early May to Upper Shavers Fork in Randolph County. This wide stream snaking through the heart of West Virginia’s highest elevation is well known to trout enthusiasts, but its length only adds to its diversity of trout fishing opportunities.
"We stock 46 miles of this stream by rail,” said Yokum as he cast a small nymph into a riffle. "Believe me we spread them out too."
We enjoyed several hours on the catch and release stretch of Upper Shavers having hiked in from the end of the forest service access road. Although we encountered four other vehicles parked at the dead-end, we ran into only sparse numbers along the stream itself.
"We seem to get more requests every year for places like this," Yokum tells me in an interview for West Virginia Outdoors. "It’s just an adventure every time we come up here. You get that ‘wild experience of nature.’ You come up here and you feel like you’re fishing way back in the 1900’s."
The look of the stream, surrounded by thousands of acres of the Monongahela National Forest, hasn’t changed since the turn of the last century. However, the comparisons between fishing in the two eras are night and day. The DNR treats several tributaries of this fast moving river with limestone techniques pioneered here in the state. The treatments improve the water quality to sustain trout over long periods of time.
The railroad paralleling the waterway in the 1900’s carried natural resources out of the hills, today–it’s used to bring them back in as the rails allow access for stocking in this remote country that is largely inaccessible by vehicle.
Catch and release restrictions mean fishing pressure isn’t has hard on the trout. The alpine climate allows many fish to hold over in the streams from the spring to fall months.
Although hatched and reared in captivity it doesn’t take the trout long to realize their natural feeding instincts and adapt from regular hand feeding in a raceway to foraging on the latest insect hatch from beneath a large boulder.
You can hear more about the Upper Shavers Trout Fishing Experience by clicking on the audio icon above.